Archive for December, 2005
December 16, 2005
Board Dynamics on the Front Page
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On Wednesday, the NYT front page article on the departure of the Red Cross CEO burrowed beneath the surface story that we’d heard on the news the day before (that the CEO was leaving because of problems with the Hurricane Katrina response).
Of course, the hurricane response wasn’t the disease — it was barely even the symptom. The Red Cross Board, comprised of 50 people the bulk of whom are selected by local chapters, never met a chief executive it didn’t want to replace. The organization’s spokesman actually told the media that the hurricane had nothing to do with the firing, but that “it had to do more with coordination and communication with the board.”
You’d think they’d be a little embarrassed to admit that the head of the nation’s most important non-profit organization was forced out — not because of anything to do with billion-dollar emergency response programs, but because she didn’t send enough memos to the board.
And how there could have been any communications issues is beyond me, considering that the board chairman, according to the NYT, spent most of her time in her office at the headquarters, hired a staff for herself (!), and took on “more of the daily operations of the organization.” After all that, they still had communications and coordinations issues? Gasp! How could that be?
Sarcasm aside, and as always bearing in mind that I only know what I read in the paper, this appears to be a classic example of everything that’s wrong with many nonprofit organizations today.
For one thing, it isn’t the size of the Board that matters (though it’s obviously too big), but how it’s selected. Any organization that allows other organizations to select its leadership — organizations with their own parochial interests — deserves what it gets. Chapters, components, whatever you call them — a national organization’s board needs to be comprised of individuals who understand that their fiduciary responsibility is to the national organization.
Unfortunately, the Red Cross is more important than most other nonprofits, and while it may deserve what it gets for allowing itself to be grossly mismanaged, the rest of us deserve a Red Cross that actually works. The organization will not be able to heal itself; the president and Congress are going to have to get involved to force change, and the best we can hope for is that we don’t wind up wiith the sorts of results that Congressional action usually gets.
December 16, 2005
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TypePad’s weirdest problem yet: all the TypePad blogs I’m looking at this morning are missing all their more recent posts. It’s as if SixApart has a time machine and sent all of us (and our blogs) into the past. Bad service, getting worse — wow, what a concept!
December 15, 2005
Meet the WOMBAT
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Got an email the other day from Michael Rubin of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) letting me know that they’ve started a blog and podcast series over there called the WOMBAT (Word of Mouth Basic Training). Finally got a chance to check it out and it’s pretty impressive, content-wise. The “How-Tos” are particularly useful — short, to the point, engaging.
For example, Scott Ginsberg, who’s been wearing a nametag for 1,865 days, offers five tips on making your brand “approachable,” and John Moore of Brand Autopsy offers five tips on building buzz for “Starbucks-like success.” Haven’t had a chance to listen to the podcasts yet though I will; the one from Ketchum’s Paul Rand on building an effective WOM campaign sounds particularly interesting.
The notable thing about this blog is that it’s tied rather organically (and not overbearingly so) into an event also called WOMBAT, being held in January. It’s an example of how an “event blog” doesn’t have to sound like card-carrying advertising (which, in my opinion, should also make it more effective in promoting the event; it will be interesting to see how it plays out).
December 14, 2005
Shake It Up
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The latest issue of Association Meetings has a feature on the annual conference our association puts on, based on an interview they did with myself and Michael Honeycutt. Interestingly, the article originally came about because of my earlier posts here last August and September on meetings and the power of emotion in making them successful.
A few facts are a little off (the name of our organization, for one thing), and the article makes it seem like the whole rejuvenation of our meeting was due to me and Michael, when in fact it was very much a team effort, from our CEO on down. They also talk about a co-location effort between two organizations and do a sidebar on experiences featuring Jim Gilmore, who was a featured speaker at the ASAE conference this past summer.
December 13, 2005
Explaining Some of My Links
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Some of the links that I’ve added to my blogroll seem only tangentially related to association business, but in fact I find them sources of very pertinent info. I only link to blogs I actually read on a regular basis. Explaining a few of them:
PaidContent.org
I keep up with PaidContent (and included it in the list of “cool blogs for associations” that ASAE & The Center published) because I believe that associations themselves are in the business of providing “paid content.” How we make this content available is changing, though perhaps not fast enough. PaidContent is sort of a blog, sort of a newsletter, and is *the* hub for keeping track of corporations and startups that offer content for pay on the web (”paid” can mean paid for by readers/subscribers or by advertisers/sponsors). It’s the best source for info on new ways to reach readers, also known as “members.”
Paul Conley
Paul Conley, a veteran trade press reporter, writes thought-provoking commentary on trade journalism (which he calls the “least glamorous” type of journalism). The similarities between trade journalism and associations seem obvious (in fact, many of us are the very definition of trade publishers). I keep up with Conley because he has many interesting ideas on the evolution of trade publishing that are also applicable to our work in associations.
Influential Interactive Marketing
Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy PR tracks developments in “interactive marketing” and the way companies are using Web 2.0 tools to promote their products and services. While you can count on Steve Rubel to pull together news and links about the same type of thing, Bhargava usually digs a little deeper in his posts.
Jeremy Pepper
PR is hard-wired into the daily operations of most associations; it’s what we do both within and outside our organizations. Pepper, a PR guy from Arizona, has a lot of opinions about modern PR practices and is not afraid to share them (or pick fights about them), so his blog is usually a fun and worthwhile read.
As always, I’ll keep adding links as I find thought-provoking bloggers who have something interesting to say about different aspects of business and management that are applicable to associations. If you have any suggestions of some must-reads I’m missing out on, please let me know.
December 9, 2005
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Toby Bloomberg addresses the question I get most when talking to associations about blogging: “What if someone criticizes me (us) in comments?”